372 THE SNOW QUEEN.
beautiful it was without, among the fresh rose busnes, which
seemed as if they would never leave off blooming!

Kay and Gerda sat and looked at the picture-book of beasts -

‘and birds. Then it was, while the clock was just striking twelve
on the church tower, that Kay said,

“Oh! something struck my heart and pricked me in the eye.”

The little girl fell upon his neck; he blinked his eyes. No,
there was nothing at all to be seen.

“TJ think it is gone,” said he ; but it was not gone. It was just
one of those glass fragments which sprang from the mirror—the
magic mirror that we remember well, the ugly glass that made
everything great and good which was mirrored in it to seem small
and mean, but in which the mean and the wicked things were
brought out in relief, and every fault was noticeable at once.
Poor little Kay had also received a splinter just in his heart, and
that will now soon become like a lump of ice. It did not hurt
him now, but the splinter was still there,

“ Why do you cry?” he asked. “You look ugly like that.
There’s nothing the matter with me. Oh, fie ” he suddenly
exclaimed, ‘‘that rose is worm-eaten, and this one is quite
crooked. After all, they’re ugly roses, They ’re like the box in
which they stand.”

And then he kicked the box with his foot, and tore both the
roses off.

“ Kay, what are you about?” cried the little girl.

And when he noticed her fright he tore off another rose, and
then sprang in at his own window, away from pretty little
Gerda.

When she afterwards came with her picture-book, he said it
was only fit for babies in arms ; and when his grandmother told
stories he always came in with a dwv¢,; and when he could manage
it, he would get behind her, put on a pair of spectacles, and talk
just as she did: he could do that very cleverly, and the people
laughed at him. Soon he could mimic the speech and the gait
of everybody in the street. Everything that was peculiar or ugly
about him Kay could imitate ; and people said, “ That boy must
certainly have a remarkable heart.” But it was the glass that
stuck deep in his heart ; so it happened that he even teased little
Gerda, who loved him with all her heart.

His games now became quite different from what they were
before ; they became quite sensible. One winter’s day when it
snowed he came out with a great burning-glass, held up the blue
tail of his coat, and let the snow-flakes fall upon it.

“ Now look at the glass, Gerda,” said he.

And every flake of snow was magnified, and looked like a
splendid flower, or a star with ten points: it was beautiful to
behold.

“See how clever that is,” said Kay. ‘That’s much more in-